Friday, March 31, 2017

Staunton, March 31 – “The greatest protest
activity on March 26 occurred in regions which had shown the lowest level of
participation the 2016 Duma elections,” according to new big data research by
Sigma Expert and reported in today’s Vedomosti
by journalist Anastasiya Kornya (vedomosti.ru/politics/articles/2017/03/31/683528-aktivnee-protestovali).

“In nine of the ten cities with the
greatest share of participants in the meetings as a percentage of the total
number of residents, participation in the elections was lower than for the
country as a whole.” Among these cities were Smolensk, Komsomolsk-na-Amure,
Chita, Vladivostok, and Perm. The exception was the Daghestani capital
Makhachkala.

Everywhere but there, elections
expert Andrey Buzin says, it has been true since Soviet times that “non-participation
in elections was a form of protest.”(For a study confirming that, see Jerome M. Gilison’s “Soviet Elections
as a Measure of Dissent: The Missing One Percent,” American Political Science Review, 62: 3(1968), pp. 814-826.)

Nikolay Petrov of the Committee of
Civic Initiatives points out that “the list of cities with high meeting activity
to a large extent also corresponds with the top of ‘the tension rating’”
compiled by his organization.

This connection is important and
explains why Vladimir Putin and his entourage are so focused on ensuring that
the Kremlin ruler gets not only a super-majority in the upcoming elections but
does so with a high level of participation across the country, the goal being
70 percent on each of these measures.

But Sigma Expert’s use of big data
also provides other insights into the ways in which people were mobilized to
take part in the protests. “In contrast to the winter of 2011-2012 when
Facebook was the main place, in 2017, the VKontakte network was the main instrument
of mobilization,” the journalist writes.

And that explains why Navalny’s
effort was so successful in reaching out to so many places: Only half of the 20
cities where the largest demos took place have a Facebook presence whereas
VKontakte was an is “everywhere.”And
that explains something else: the relatively small presence of bloggers in the
leadership of Sunday’s actions.

Staunton, March 31 – All too many
observers have concluded that Alyaksandr Lukashenka by his repressive moved before
and during the Belarusian demonstrations over the weekend has achieved what he
did in 2010, re-instilling fear in the Belarusian people and ensuring that they
will not soon challenge him again.

That is all the more so because the
opposition has not scheduled any more demonstrations until the beginning of
May, a delay that those who think Lukashenka has won this round interpret as a
victory but one that in fact reflects something more fundamental: Over the next
few weeks, Belarusians must focus on sowing operations in their agricultural
sector.

What such people do not see,
Vladimir Neklyayev, a poet who is also one of the leaders of the Belarusian
National Congress who was arrested before Saturday’s protests, is that Belarus
now is in a completely new situation: “No one has any fear, and no one has any
doubt that what is happening are the death convulsions of the regime” (svaboda.org/a/niakliajeu-interviju/28400710.html;
in Russian, at charter97.org/ru/news/2017/3/31/245445/).

Lukashenka by his
thuggish actions is “only accelerating” the speed of his departure from the
scene.Of course, today or tomorrow, the
opposition can’t force Lukashenka out given that he has tanks and military
forces.But it has something he doesn’t
have and can’t obtain, the poet-politician continues.

And that is this: “It is impossible
to do anything with a people which comes out of prison laughing. Look at the way
the powers that be in comparison with the people, and the people are now
laughing. This too is a victory, for there where there is laugher, fear
disappears and in its place arises an irresistible faith in the victory of the
idea for which you are fighting.”

It will be a good thing if there is dialogue
between Europe and Minsk, Neklyayev says. But equally or perhaps even more
important is “the monologue of the Belarusian people,” one in which it can “stake
out its position and show its will.” That can’t happen by sitting at home. It
requires going into the streets.And
that is what Belarusians are going to do.

Belarusians are not only leaving
prison with smiles and laughter; those who have not been arrested are not
forgetting those who have or failing to consider those who might be. They are
collecting money for the families of those incarcerated, they are writing
letters to those behind bars, and they even organizing a solidarity with
prisoners action (belaruspartisan.org/politic/375088/
and charter97.org/be/news/2017/3/31/245466/).

Those are
remarkable manifestations of the birth or more properly the rebirth of the
Belarusian nation.And its rebirth means
that those, like many in both Moscow and the West, who dismiss Belarus as an
unreal nation or those, like Lukashenka, who think that they are ruling a
population rather than a people are about to be surprised even more than they
have been.